Teacher should set the stage: have students follow the trial testimony
in their books

Have a witness chair in front of the classroom. The Judge should be in a
prominent place, perhaps behind the teacher’s desk

Defense and prosecuting attorneys may ask questions from their desks in
the front of the room. The Defendant should sit at a table or desk with the
Defense Lawyer, facing the Judge

Discussion:

NOTE TO TEACHER:

The issues raised by this trial are among the most important in this curriculum.
The following questions related to the trial show that the study of the Holocaust
is relevant to our time. The following questions might be raised in the jury’s
deliberation.

(The first three questions may help in the discussion of consideration number
1 – the Oath of Hippocrates.)

1. What obligations do doctors have according to the Hippocratic
Oath?

Suggestions for discussion: Referring to the Judge’s opening
remarks, those obligations may be summarized as follows:

Heal the sick.

Do no one harm.

(See opening remarks and Dr. Bauer’s testimony)

2. Is there evidence that Dr. Schultz broke his Hippocratic Oath?

Suggestions for discussion: Victims of the “euthanasia”
program were not volunteers and were killed by Dr. Schultz (and other doctors)
for non-medical reasons. By participating in selections, he sent Jews to the
gas chambers. He killed experimental subjects with lethal injections of poison
and typhus. The evidence indicates that he harmed those in his care, administered
“deadly medicine” and did not “benefit the sick.”

3. What is Dr. Schultz’s defense against the charge that he broke
the Hippocratic Oath?

Suggestions for discussion: The doctor’s defense regarding
his Oath is twofold: 1) He was dedicated to the health of the “most important
patient,” the so-called Volksgemeinschaft, which he conceived as a “body”
that needed to be purged of parasites and infection. 2) He claims to have
been advancing the cause of medical science for the future health of Germans.

(The next three questions may help in the discussion of consideration number
2 - established moral principles, that is, generally accepted standards of
right and wrong.)

4. Would Dr. Schultz's experiments be justified if he had, in fact,
advanced medical science and discovered a vaccine for typhus or tuberculosis?

Suggestions for discussion: IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT
NO SUCH VACCINES WERE DISCOVERED, DESPITE THE IMPLICATION OF DR. SCHULTZ’S
TESTIMONY THAT HE AND HIS COLLEAGUE LEARNED ENOUGH ABOUT TUBERCULOSIS TO SAVE
LIVES AFTER THE WAR. NO ADVANCES IN MEDICAL RESEARCH WERE MADE. This question
also includes the issue of the ends justifying the means. Could the search
for a cure for some disease justify experiments on human beings at Auschwitz?
As Dr. Wald points out the subjects were not volunteers, their human rights
as individuals were violated as all respect for life was gone.

5. Does Dr. Schultz have ethical standards, and does he strictly
abide by them?

Suggestions for discussion: Students might argue that Dr.
Schultz had his beliefs and faithfully followed them. How can one judge his
view of life and his behavior as long as they were consistent with his own
code of morality? This raises the question of whether there can be one ethical
standard of behavior for everyone, something that includes a recognition of
the “human status.” One Nuremberg Justice wrote that Nazi crimes were “crimes
against the human status,” that is, against the diversity of human life and
against the common status of human existence. Human beings, he argues, must
respect other human beings because they share the same status and because
they are different from each other. Acting in strict accordance with one’s
own standards does not mean the standards are necessarily good or the actions
are morally correct.

Suggestions for discussion: The single most important standard
for Dr. Schultz was usefulness. If people could work, they would live.
Dr. Schultz refers to this as “a clean moral code.” As one survivor noted:
“Why kill us right away when they could kill us while getting some work out
of us?” Dr. Schultz’s ethical code did not include standards like the sanctity
of life, respect for the individual or respect for life itself. The philosophy
of life unworthy of life guided his behavior. Dr. Schultz abided by his beliefs
that future generations were threatened by Jews and other “inferior races.”
He even speaks of saving his grandchildren from danger. Since he so firmly
believes in the threat from Jews and since he obviously loves his children
and grandchildren and his people, can he be guilty of crimes against humanity?
Whether or not his ethical code was criminal depends on whether there is a
universal moral law requiring all people to respect the dignity of others.
If so, then it is wrong to treat people as mere objects or as means to an
end. (The next question may help in the discussion of consideration number
3 – obligation to German law.)

7. Should a person obey a state order without question? Can individuals
be allowed to determine whether a state law is just or unjust? What is the
standard by which to determine whether a law is right or wrong – especially
in a country that prides itself in being a country of laws (like Germany or
the U.S.)?

Suggestions for discussion: These questions pose one of
the more difficult problems raised by the War Crimes Trials, and a problem
that has continued to haunt civilized people. Dr. Schultz argued that he obeyed
the law and was a “law-abiding citizen.” He claimed that had he not participated
in the “euthanasia” killings, the selections and the experiments, he would
have been disobeying the law of the land. The point to be made is that law
is not inherently good or just. Dr. Bauer suggests that conscience may conflict
with the law – thinking citizens have a duty to distinguish just laws from
unjust ones.